Sudha Srinivasan
University of Connecticut, CT·Medicine & Clinical Research
About 4,000 babies are diagnosed with hemiplegia in the United States each year. Hemiplegia is weakness and impaired movement on one side of the body, and it occurs in 40% of children with cerebral palsy.
- Fields
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biomedical Engineering
- Topics
hemiplegia
cerebral palsy
pediatric rehabilitation
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jul 2027
What they work on
- Assess whether a home program using modified joystick-operated ride-on toys is feasible, enjoyable, and acceptable for children aged 3–8 with hemiplegia and their caregivers, using child and caregiver questionnaires.
- Compare 6 weeks of ride-on-toy navigation training with a conventional-therapy-style home program in a randomized pilot of 30 children, measuring upper extremity function with standardized motor tests, accelerometry, and movement kinematics.
- Determine whether arm function and spontaneous use of the affected arm gained through ride-on-toy training persist at a one-month follow-up.
More about the research
Children with hemiplegia struggle to use the affected arm and hand for self-care, play, and schoolwork. Guidelines call for 30–40 hours of intensive, repetitive, goal-directed practice to improve arm function. In reality, many children receive under 15 hours of therapy a month because of access, therapist availability, time, and cost. Families need therapy options that are fun and easy to do at home.
Why it matters
Children with hemiplegia, including many with cerebral palsy, could gain more practice time with their affected arm through an enjoyable toy that families can use at home. If effective, caregivers and clinicians could use modified ride-on toys alongside regular therapy to improve arm function and independence, and to reduce long-term problems from not using the arm.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jill Heathcock
Ohio State University, OH·Medicine & Clinical Research
Build four standardized Behavioral Assessment Method (BAM) Indices of spontaneous reaching and grasping. The indices come from coded videos of 80 typically developing infants and toddlers and 240 children with stroke-related hemiparetic cerebral palsy, analyzed with multiple statistical models.
Sunghoon Lee
University of Massachusetts, MA·Biomedical Engineering
Develop a Body Channel Identification (BCID) sensing platform, with batteryless object tags read by a wrist-worn device through the body during touch, that records object identity, contact timing, grip pressure and wrist motion.
Cristina Sarmiento
University of Colorado Denver/Anschutz Medical Campus, CO·Medicine & Clinical Research·Early-career
Explore with qualitative methods what primary care providers need from CPC2U, an online health tool for adults with cerebral palsy, and what affects its use in practice.
The school
University of Connecticut: 31 labs on PI Pages, $434M a year on research, 360 research doctorates a year.
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